


Agent Indiana Jones and the Temple of Chorus

by Dellessa



Series: Agent Indiana [1]
Category: Indiana Jones Series, Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6338470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dellessa/pseuds/Dellessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Funding is hard to come by. It’s something that I have battled with in all of my years in academia. There is no silver platter laden with money and shuttle bookings. Even less so in my field of study. There isn’t a lot of people that find an interest in alien studies and archeology. Well, no one but defense contractors that are eager to harvest alien tech for their own ends. Ends that are more often than not, less than savoury. I have morals. Some anyway. </p><p>A few of my colleagues would beg to differ. I’ve heard Smother’s call me a ‘glorified treasure hunter’, but then Smother’s is an ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agent Indiana Jones and the Temple of Chorus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [patrickthewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrickthewriter/gifts).



Funding is hard to come by. It’s something that I have battled with in all of my years in academia. There is no silver platter laden with money and shuttle bookings. Even less so in my field of study. There isn’t a lot of people that find an interest in alien studies and archeology. Well, no one but defense contractors that are eager to harvest alien tech for their own ends. Ends that are more often than not, less than savoury. I have morals. Some anyway. 

A few of my colleagues would beg to differ. I’ve heard Smother’s call me a ‘glorified treasure hunter’, but then Smother’s is an ass. 

Normally I would have shown him to the door, but his offer was intriguing. Then there was the funding, more of a temptation than an intrigue. I don’t know any archaeologist who wouldn't’ want carte blanche of the colonies. A ticket to anywhere. The licence to explore any of those worlds on their dollar. 

“Henry, I do hope that you have read through the file and have considered our offer,” the man, Aiden Price said. He makes my skin crawl. There is something about him that makes me trust him about as much as any of the Innies I fought off in my time in the militia. He makes me uneasy, but common sense goes out the window. 

“Please. It’s Professor Jones.” I smile slowly, and it slowly becomes a shit-eating-grin. “You’re offer is...interesting, but as you can see I’m a very busy man.” 

“You will be compensated for your troubles. More than compensated. You have the exact skill set we are looking for.” 

Academic nerd? Really? That is a skill set they are looking for? I made a humming sound. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Don’t take too long. We have other projects. The Director is not a patient man.” 

He’s not either. I hit up my contacts and dug up the dirt on them. I checked into their funding sources. On the surface it looked legit. Even farther down. Charon Industries. They’ve made a name for themselves. Not necessarily in a good way. It is to be expected. 

Days later, I fill out the paperwork. I’m on sabbatical. Indefinitely. I know at least if all else fails I have a fall back. I can go back to the university, and teach all of the little rich kids that end up there. And I’m sure I will, eventually, when I’m done with the Director and I’ve worn out my welcome there.

oOoOoOo

They called the ship Mother of Invention. It was a Charon-class light frigate, and far larger than any starship I’d ever been on. 

It’s not home. But I wasn’t staying long. 

I don't train train with the other soldiers, although sometimes I would watch them.

The Director called me Agent Indiana. This bothered me for any number of reasons. How did he know that was what I went by? What else did he know? 

He had the same cold air as my father. I could almost hear him saying ‘Indiana was the dog. Why would you name yourself after the dog?’ He brought out the worst in me, just like my father. I won’t lie, but the second week I was ready to go. Whether it was back to the university, or off on a dig. I didn’t care. The man was insufferable. 

I didn’t stay long though. Just long enough long enough to be barely on speaking terms with the other recruits. Long enough to know to give Agent Florida a wide berth, and to know that the Director was more than Carolina’s CO. They had that look about them, but the eyes gave it away.

I didn’t make any friends, but that wasn’t why I was there. 

When I left, I doubt they even noticed I was gone. 

I didn’t have much in common with any of them. I hovered during our off time. I would sit in on movie night. Hovering on the edge of the main group. They weren’t bad people, but they weren’t necessarily MY people. 

“What’s wrong, Indy?” North asked. 

I didn’t need someone fussing over me, but then he fussed over everyone. “Nothing. I’m fine.” 

And I was, right up until Agent Kentucky snuck the snake off planet last time they dropped for a mission. Why she thought it was a good idea, and how she managed it. I don't care. 

I hate snakes. 

That fact never changed. 

I really HATE snakes!

oOoOoOo

I should have read the fine print. I didn’t, and when they approached me about the AI program it left me floundering. I agreed. 

I didn’t have much of a choice. I had signed the agreement. 

Ksi and I got on well. Curiosity is my stock and trade, and she was it embodied. 

_“Hello?”_ I heard the voice in my head first, I wouldn’t see her later until I was armored up and the projection unit active. Her voice was shy. 

_“Hello,”_ I can’t help but say in turn. 

_“I’m Ksi. I’m so glad to meet you finally. The Director said we would be perfect together, and I think...I think he wasn’t lying about that.”_

_“You think he’s lying about other things?”_ I can’t hid my own amusement. 

_”A lot of things,”_ she said with a solemnity that made a smile crack my face. She was a breath of fresh air in the staleness of the ship. 

“How are you feeling?” The Counselor asked. 

“Good,” I managed to say. 

“Any pain?” He asked, his eyes fixed on me.

“I’m good.” 

He nodded, finally tired of my terse replies, and finally left me alone. 

_”I don't like him either,”_ Ksi confided. _”He’s not right.”_

_”You’re right, kid. He’s not. Not in the least.”_

oOoOoOo

A month after Ksi was implanted I was sent my merry way, and thrown on a black cat-class subprowler. Somehow after being on a ship as big as the MOI the cramped conditions were less than ideal. 

The first planet the dropped us on was a disaster. Innies. Giant Boas. Two things I hate more than anything in this life. Please. I would take tarantulas any day of the week. 

The second was better. 

Haylon VI. The planet was a Sangheili outpost at one time. Home to one of the great libraries. It might just have been my version of heaven. I think it was Ksi’s as well. Her faint yellow light hovered over my shoulder, reading the manuscript as I did. 

“This is it, Indy! This is it,” her voice was like a young child at Christmas. “We found it! This is amazing.” The sense of awe in her voice filtered into my own excitement. 

“We did, kid. We really did.” 

She bounced around me, unable to keep her jubilation in check. If only my students had been so enthusiastic about learning. Maybe I never would have left.

Then again, I can’t say I regret that. I regret a great many things, but not Ksi, and taking her away with me. It was a blessing in disguise as well I would learn later.

The manuscripts were in good condition. I could have stayed there for years. Could have wrung out a good number of treatise on ancient Sangheili life. We weren’t there for that. We were there for the star charts I found and the coordinates to one of the old Sangheili homeworlds. It was long since abandoned, and resettled on the edge of the Terran empire. 

Chorus. 

It was a little backwater, but it was so much more, and no one knew it. No one but my team, and eventually the keepers of my funding. 

Had I known what would happen I never would have sent that transmission. I would have destroyed the star maps and disappeared. 

I have morals, as I’ve said. There are somethings you don’t do. In my naivety I didn’t understand.

But I did soon enough. The settlers were welcoming. They didn’t meddle with my digs, and I tried not to protest too much when my finds were taken away, until I did a little more digging, and realized that Charon was sending the mercenaries on world. 

I didn’t realize until it was too late and there was a civil war coming down on my head. No amount of reasoning or wheedling I attempted would fix things. 

“What are we going to do?” Ksi whispered in my head. “I’m scared, Indy. I don't’ want them to take me away.” 

“I don't either, kid.”

I couldn’t go back. WE couldn't go back. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what they did with decommissioned AI. They’d wipe her, and they would do nearly as bad to me.

I couldn't let them take anything more. 

All I could do was pick a side and hope for the best.

oOoOoOo

So I chose. Chose and met Emily Grey. She was brilliant. Scary, but brilliant. 

She chattered at me while we worked in the temple, digging out the lower levels. It was slow going, and we only went out on her downtime, which wasn’t much. 

She knelt in the trench, her full armor on and hiding her pale hair, and olive skin. I watched her as she carefully extracter the knife from the ground, gently brushing away the dirt. She looked up, and I could almost imagine those intelligent green eyes watching me. 

_”I like her,”_ Ksi whispered in my head. _”She’s like us. I mean she is one of OUR kind. Like You and I.”_

_”I like her too.”_

_”More than like?_ Ksi asked, all nosiness, and not a little bit of home.

I snorted at that, and Grey looked at me. I didn’t have to see her face to know one brow shot up.

 _”I more than like her too. She’s just like us,”_ Ksi added. 

We camped at the site when we could, curling up in the tent. I taught her Sangheili script in the dim light of the torches. The girl was a fast learner. Fast in the alarming way that Ksi was. Leaps and bounds more intelligent than the kids I tried to teach.

Then again, I might be partial. I loved her. I didn’t care an iota for them. 

I was happy though. For a time. I don’t think---and never have thought---that happiness is a sustainable state. In the back of my mind I knew that they would come for me. I knew too much, and I had Ksi. 

_“No. Indy! Please! No! We can Run!”_ Ksi bounced in front of me, her agitation catching.

_“I’m sorry kid. I’m so sorry.”_

I’m so sorry. 

More sorry than I’ve ever been in all of my days. 

I don’t want to lose either of them. They’ve become the most important things in my life. 

I have to protect that. I have to protect them.

So. I did the only thing that I could. I pulled her, hid her chip, and hoped to whatever gods were listening that Grey would be clever enough to figure out where I stowed her. 

I hoped again. 

Maybe I would survive long enough for Grey to save me too.


End file.
